THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

and and then more profoundly in the ever recurring Bible and Deeper Life courses. May God help us! 14 He, who through the spirit of life and freedom, is gradually freeing us from the confines of the inherited, one-sided 38 DUTCH-PRUSSIAN ANABAPTISTS Prussian system, will also graciously protect our congregations from the equally one-sided and therefore unwholesome system of the Dutch Mennonites through His Spirit of moderation and reasonableness according to the principle: “All is yours,” and “judge all things.” The latter is a system which is a partial copy of the education and support of the ministers in the state churches, and has long since been mercilessly judged by its own great shortcomings. Menno was no opponent of an honorarium, as many would have it: for example, he regularly received 60 imperial thalers a year from the congregations in Friesland (cf. Saemtliche Werke: Briefe an die Gemeinde in Friesland [Letters to the Congregation in Friesland], and v.d. Smissen: Glaubenslehre und Geschichte [Doctrine and History], p. 60). Yet he justly criticizes the often princely salaries of the churchmen of his time (cf. the end of his “Withdrawal”), which they very often wasted in the most godless ways. It is interesting that some have tried to demonstrate, on the basis of I Corinthians 9 (where Paul clearly establishes the right of the minister to be supported by the congregation and merely states that he made an exception to the rule in Corinth), that a paid ministry is not Scriptural. It is a great honor and grace if one can follow the saintly Paul in this regard. But one should never regard himself of more account than he is! How sad and foolish it is when large and wealthy congregations repeatedly lectured their spiritual leaders with “gratis, gratis!” and then allowed these, their spiritually impoverished shepherds, who were ostensibly following the example of the Apostle Paul, to copy their sermons out of the books of alien “hirelings and day laborers!” Compare also Phil. 4:16-18 in connection with I Corinthians 9:14 and Luke 10:7. Why do these congregations, who, as a consequence of this their “truly apostolical (?) principle” and "love preachers” degenerate into a “honey-thief’s beehive,” force their preachers as well as their reading members to load their bookshelves with the works of Lutherans, the Reformed, Baptists, Methodists, Moravian Brethren, etc., among which a Mennonite work must always be a valuable rarity?— Why do these congregations not demand, as that more than deservedly blamed Roman Catholic Church does, that their spiritual shepherds also remain celibate, according to the “best” advice and preference of Paul (I Cor. 7), rather than be satisfied with an imitation of the “lesser” (?) example of “Cephas and the other apostles,” who took wives and were supported by their congregations (“not to work” for their livelihood, I Cor. 9:6, 6)? As far as the education of our spiritu